Steamworld Heist is a mega gem, also highly recommend Steamworld Dig. XCom + Worms handled perfectly, they seemed to have effortlessly created their own genre framework

Ziggurat is surprisingly good, I'm loving the flow of it. Horrible with a controller...

I'm crazy addicted to that new Metroidvania Souls Rogue-lite called Dead Cells which is absurdly polished and value packed for a 15 dollar early access title. 30-40 hours to loop and they plan on doubling the content within the year with the first big content patch coming next week. It's like Rogue Legacy but... so extremely better

I had to interrupt my playthrough of Life is Strange yesterday because the fourth episode is so emotionally devastating. It's like everything The Butterfly Effect tried to do ten years ago except it actually works.

Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:05 pm

Das

Re: The Video Game Thread

Beau wrote:

I had to interrupt my playthrough of Life is Strange yesterday because the fourth episode is so emotionally devastating. It's like everything The Butterfly Effect tried to do ten years ago except it actually works.

That game's grown in terms of fondness for me a lot since I first went through it, I should play it again soon.

Working through Nier: Automata, which is downright excellent (THEY STILL NEED TO FIX FULLSCREEN MODE FOR IT ON PC THO). That got put on delay for persona 5 and other ps4 goodies, so far the only ps4 game that's blown me away IS persona 5. Horizon zero dawn is pretty but stiff with nice core gameplay.. The last of us is well performed and thematically, I really like how the gameplay and narrative undertones meet up, but in a lot of ways, so much of that narrative is kind of tread territory, not really for games, but really, The Road and the morally ambiguous events beyond the end of civilization only can offer so many surprises? I kind of prefer Stalker's approach to the whole post apocalyptic moral ambiguity, let your play define your place in the world, don't tell.

I have Uncharted 4 and Final Fantasy 15 on borrow from a friend tomorrow, I don't expect anything but a good, fun one and done action platformer from uncharted 4, but final fantasy 15, I don't know what to expect.

Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:45 am

Stu

Re: The Video Game Thread

Das wrote:

The last of us is well performed and thematically, I really like how the gameplay and narrative undertones meet up, but in a lot of ways, so much of that narrative is kind of tread territory, not really for games, but really, The Road and the morally ambiguous events beyond the end of civilization only can offer so many surprises? I kind of prefer Stalker's approach to the whole post apocalyptic moral ambiguity, let your play define your place in the world, don't tell.

I have Uncharted 4 and Final Fantasy 15 on borrow from a friend tomorrow, I don't expect anything but a good, fun one and done action platformer from uncharted 4, but final fantasy 15, I don't know what to expect.

The writing in The Last Of Us may have been somewhat well-tread, but I still really enjoyed it for how meaty and insightful the particular characterizations and arcs in it were, and it really did give me the feels more than once, so much so that I can't help but worry that Naughty Dog is making a mistake by trying to sequelize it, instead of just leaving the original as a special, unique one-time-only foray into the universe of that particular story. We shall see.

As for Uncharted 4, it's currently my favorite game in the series; the writing in it is great as well, it puts a nice, tidy little end-bow on the franchise (sort of), and the adventuring, combat, and even some of the puzzles were a blast, and the most intensely "cinematic" the series has ever had. It's one of the most replayable games I've had in recent memory, easy.

I loved 4 because the reduced the set pieces and made into a more "walking simulator" during sections. But the characterizations and interactions between characters make the game. While 1-3 were all about the setpieces, 4 is about the characters. Front and center.

That game's grown in terms of fondness for me a lot since I first went through it, I should play it again soon.

Just finished it.

Throughout the whole game, I was thinking, "Eh, that scene was kind of awkward. Mm, maybe the protagonist shouldn't comment on everything she sees, we get it. Heh, could've done without that," and so on and so forth. But the overall experience is so affecting. And the integration between story and gameplay works amazingly well. It's very fluid and user-friendly, and it pulls off the trick of feeling very interactive, very reactive, while also progressing like a long movie or TV show.

It's also the high school melodrama I needed to wash away the bad taste from 13 Reasons Why, so there's that.

_________________I Watch Films, But...In a word, I think that, far from favoring directors’ formal inventiveness, widescreen, instead, stifles it. It is, I’m more and more persuaded, if not the only, at least the main culprit for the expressive poverty of the image today. - Eric RohmerVimeo / / / Flickr

Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:19 pm

Ace

Re: The Video Game Thread

Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:47 am

Fist

Re: The Video Game Thread

lol "first look"

new Mario looks amazing thoooo

_________________I Watch Films, But...In a word, I think that, far from favoring directors’ formal inventiveness, widescreen, instead, stifles it. It is, I’m more and more persuaded, if not the only, at least the main culprit for the expressive poverty of the image today. - Eric RohmerVimeo / / / Flickr

Wed Jun 14, 2017 4:59 am

Macrology

Re: The Video Game Thread

Absolutely. Also can we just fawn over the art direction in that new Yoshi game?

_________________Ma`crol´o`gyn. 1. Long and tedious talk without much substance; superfluity of words.

Wed Jun 14, 2017 5:41 am

Ace

Re: The Video Game Thread

Yoshi? It's been Yarn Yoshi since the WiiU game. This one looks a bit more LBP like.

Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:28 am

Das

Re: The Video Game Thread

Beau wrote:

Just finished it.

Throughout the whole game, I was thinking, "Eh, that scene was kind of awkward. Mm, maybe the protagonist shouldn't comment on everything she sees, we get it. Heh, could've done without that," and so on and so forth. But the overall experience is so affecting. And the integration between story and gameplay works amazingly well. It's very fluid and user-friendly, and it pulls off the trick of feeling very interactive, very reactive, while also progressing like a long movie or TV show.

It's also the high school melodrama I needed to wash away the bad taste from 13 Reasons Why, so there's that.

Yeah, for as many awkward 'well, that was scripted by a 30 y.o dude imitating what he thinks teen girls joke about' moments (of which, there aren't an excess of, to be perfectly fair) There's more moments where you get to pace a scene at your leisure, and really fundamentally, the core duo of the story is a very endearing pair of characters, and small things like choosing an obviously wrong answer just to see a character's reaction, is really fun.

I do have issues with

How extreme the final decision is when up to that point, it had done an excellent job of really working out the outcomes of the player decisions in a micro and macro sense, it's all BIG CHOICE, CHOOSE NOW. And fundamentally, depending on your decision, everything else you may have done in the game may have not mattered, because you either choose chloe and leave Arcadia Bay as a pile of rubble (albeit, it does show that there's people who did make it) or bury Chloe and nothing happens. It felt like a big jump.

Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:15 pm

Beau

Re: The Video Game Thread

Das wrote:

Yeah, for as many awkward 'well, that was scripted by a 30 y.o dude imitating what he thinks teen girls joke about' moments (of which, there aren't an excess of, to be perfectly fair) There's more moments where you get to pace a scene at your leisure, and really fundamentally, the core duo of the story is a very endearing pair of characters, and small things like choosing an obviously wrong answer just to see a character's reaction, is really fun.

I do have issues with

How extreme the final decision is when up to that point, it had done an excellent job of really working out the outcomes of the player decisions in a micro and macro sense, it's all BIG CHOICE, CHOOSE NOW. And fundamentally, depending on your decision, everything else you may have done in the game may have not mattered, because you either choose chloe and leave Arcadia Bay as a pile of rubble (albeit, it does show that there's people who did make it) or bury Chloe and nothing happens. It felt like a big jump.

I kind of agree, but then I also think the tone and texture of your moment-to-moment journey still depends on the decisions you make along the way, not to mention the outcomes of smaller dramas (i.e. Kate) and your relationship to specific secondary characters. So I didn't feel the final choice necessarily invalidated everything that came before. Also, as one perceptive user pointed out in Rock Paper Shotgun - which, along with the AV Club, has one of the few commenter communities worth reading - even when there aren't direct consequences for your choices, for whatever reason, you still remember what choices you've made as a player. For instance, it's pretty clear that the whole euthanasia scene in the fourth episode will be wiped away, even as it's happening. You're obviously going to undo that alternate timeline right afterwards. But that's exactly why that decision is so weirdly private and important. You're not making that decision to get ahead in the game or as part of some overall strategy. What you do is between you and yourself.

Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:30 pm

Das

Re: The Video Game Thread

Beau wrote:

I kind of agree, but then I also think the tone and texture of your moment-to-moment journey still depends on the decisions you make along the way, not to mention the outcomes of smaller dramas (i.e. Kate) and your relationship to specific secondary characters. So I didn't feel the final choice necessarily invalidated everything that came before. Also, as one perceptive user pointed out in Rock Paper Shotgun - which, along with the AV Club, has one of the few commenter communities worth reading - even when there aren't direct consequences for your choices, for whatever reason, you still remember what choices you've made as a player. For instance, it's pretty clear that the whole euthanasia scene in the fourth episode will be wiped away, even as it's happening. You're obviously going to undo that alternate timeline right afterwards. But that's exactly why that decision is so weirdly private and important. You're not making that decision to get ahead in the game or as part of some overall strategy. What you do is between you and yourself.

I understand that perspective, and ultimately it's why I still end up liking the game so much in the end. I just wish it'd offered more shade of nuance to its final decisions, simply because it was so good at adding those shades of grey to a wide majority of other choices earlier, often making what seemed 'right' in the moment a bit muddier.

Sun Jun 18, 2017 4:44 pm

neumdaddy

Re: The Video Game Thread

Really thinking of picking up the Switch and getting started on Zelda...

I had to set the resolution to Playstation 2-levels to get it running, but I'm finally playing NieR: Automata. (My GeForce GT 740M graphic card is pretty old. It can handle all the other games in my library, but NieR is not particularly well-optimized for PCs. Still, I'm below the minimum requirements, so I can't really cry foul.) It's a lot of fun, though I went through the prologue on Easy because it's insane and there aren't any save points or checkpoints at all until about an hour into the game and there's like three bosses (well, alright, only one, but there're two other major encounters that can kill you pretty easily on Hard, which is how I started), hundreds of enemies, and an array of set pieces that seem part of a museum exhibit on the development of video game action, from Contra, Jet Force Jemini, and Devil May Cry to Galaga, G-Darius, and Star Fox. The game also holds your hand for some stupid stuff, like how to jump, but then neglects to inform you about far more obscure mechanics that you can't figure out by just randomly pressing buttons on your pad. Even on Easy, that was one intense hour. (Though, yes, since you have like a million health items during the prologue, it's pretty hard to die on Easy, unless you're really bad at the game. Even so, I was running out of meds by the end of it.)

Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:51 pm

Beau

Re: The Video Game Thread

I've managed to boost the resolution to 720p, which for this game, on my GPU, is a feat. The frame rate's probably within the 50-60 fps range during battles with dozens of robots bouncing around and shooting stuff out of their eyes, but it dips to 15-30 when I'm walking around towns or something, because the game's just that hilariously badly-optimized for PCs. Still, at least I can play it without it looking like pixel art. Of course, I have low settings across the board. I also have to run it through Borderless Gaming so I can actually play it windowed without getting a white screen. (One of many weird things that seem to be happening with this console port - and not just on my end.) And I downloaded a well-known mod (called FAR) to fiddle with settings that you can't touch within the in-game menu (and which affect performance even on computers much more powerful than my own). Just sharing this in case anyone else is interested in NieR: Automata for PC, which you should be because the 9 or so hours I've spent on it thus far have been glorious, even with severe slowdown at times.

I have not much time for playing long games like Assassin's Creed or Doom all day long only on weekends). At work (when I have a break) I play small online games, usually on http://www.friv1000games.org/ . My favorite ones are Caribbean Admiral and Candy Crash. Very relaxing and fun.

Been playing through Dark Souls III again to do a no summon run (fighting every boss solo) and it’s the first time in a long time I’ve gotten a feeling of genuine accomplishment from a videogame.a

Thu Oct 19, 2017 10:38 am

Sammael

Re: The Video Game Thread

Beau wrote:

I had to interrupt my playthrough of Life is Strange yesterday because the fourth episode is so emotionally devastating. It's like everything The Butterfly Effect tried to do ten years ago except it actually works.

Man, when they first announced "the butterfly effect" I almost hella-puked. That execution tho...

It’s been easy to see Super Mario Odyssey as a series-redefining throwback to an idea Nintendo gave up on long ago, but it’s turned out to be so much more than that. It’s a pristine combination of all the directions this company has taken its icon in over the last several decades, cherry-picking the best traits from Mario’s many outings—and out into Nintendo’s wider oeuvre—and rolling them into an adventure that refuses to quit changing. This is a testament to the company’s enduring experimental nature and exacting eye for smart, intuitive game design, but after all these years of largely delivering on that reputation, could we really have expected anything less?

Been playing through Dark Souls III again to do a no summon run (fighting every boss solo) and it’s the first time in a long time I’ve gotten a feeling of genuine accomplishment from a videogame.a

I've tried to do one run like this of each game in the series. Some bosses are brutal, and a few I just cannot do solo. The Nameless King is one example.

_________________Five nails through the neck.

Fri Nov 03, 2017 1:17 pm

The Nameless One

Re: The Video Game Thread

I have to say that souls games completely trump my understanding of things and I crumble to them. It's very impressive to me that people can figure it out, and with one of the more diverse set of streamers on twitch and what not. I just can't get over the patience requirement, I'm twitchy af

Fri Nov 03, 2017 1:34 pm

Smoke Bomb

Re: The Video Game Thread

Sammael wrote:

I've tried to do one run like this of each game in the series. Some bosses are brutal, and a few I just cannot do solo. The Nameless King is one example.

The Twin Princes gave me the toughest run taking me roughly a dozen attempts to finally beat them. My victory shout caused great concern to my neighbors! The Nameless King took me two attempts Black Knight Greatsword FTW.

Sat Nov 04, 2017 2:15 am

Sammael

Re: The Video Game Thread

The Nameless One wrote:

I have to say that souls games completely trump my understanding of things and I crumble to them. It's very impressive to me that people can figure it out, and with one of the more diverse set of streamers on twitch and what not. I just can't get over the patience requirement, I'm twitchy af

I've grown a strong appreciation for games that really make me work myself to a level of near-perfection in order to succeed. To give examples from a different genre, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Legends are utterly merciless in that "one wrong move" regard.

_________________Five nails through the neck.

Sun Nov 05, 2017 12:17 pm

Sammael

Re: The Video Game Thread

Smoke Bomb wrote:

The Twin Princes gave me the toughest run taking me roughly a dozen attempts to finally beat them. My victory shout caused great concern to my neighbors! The Nameless King took me two attempts Black Knight Greatsword FTW.

The Twin Princes were certainly no pushovers but outside of the Nameless King, it was the Dragonslayer Armor that gave me the most grief I think.

_________________Five nails through the neck.

Sun Nov 05, 2017 12:18 pm

MarianoCas

Re: The Video Game Thread

Sammael wrote:

I've grown a strong appreciation for games that really make me work myself to a level of near-perfection in order to succeed. To give examples from a different genre, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Rayman Legends are utterly merciless in that "one wrong move" regard.

I know what you mean. Those kinds of games are usually very frustrating but the satisfaction after beating them is that much bigger. At least that's how it is for me.

^Is this going to be your first time playing ResE 7? If so, and you were waiting for a return to slower-paced survival horror for the series, then you're in for a treat...

Yeah I avoided 5 and 6 because it felt too actionsy and didn’t like the co-op. Only an hour into 7 so far and I’m enjoying it. It feels less RE and more Evil Dead/Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Fri Nov 24, 2017 12:17 pm

Stu

Re: The Video Game Thread

Deschain wrote:

Yeah I avoided 5 and 6 because it felt too actionsy and didn’t like the co-op. Only an hour into 7 so far and I’m enjoying it. It feels less RE and more Evil Dead/Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Yeah; 5 & 6 weren't bad games for me, but 5 was basically just a poorly-paced rehash of 4, and 6 just got too damn ridiculous for its own good, even not considering its story. 7 was the breath of rotten air that the main series has been waiting over a decade for now; here's jut hoping Capcom doesn't muck it up again later.

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